Family Tradition at Alice’s Restaurant

 

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant (exceptin’ Alice)

For many years, it has been a tradition in our family to listen to Alice’s Restaurant every Thanksgiving. This is by no means a unique tradition, but it does still get a rise out of the uninitiated, Mr. B included. Ten minutes into the song the first year I shared it with him, we had a conversation that went something like this…

Mr B: Does this song ever end?

Me: Not any time soon.

Mr B: It isn’t even a song. It’s just some guy who sounds like Bob Dylan’s cousin talking nonsense.

Me: He’s Woody Guthrie’s son. As in, ‘This Land is Your Land.’

Mr B: And you listen to this every Thanksgiving?

Me: Of course.Everyone should.

Mr B: You’re adorable. [←That right there – that’s why I love him so much.]

And because he is a wonderful, patient man, Mr. B sat through all 18-ish minutes of Alice’s Restaurant, laughing at me as I sang along to all twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, there on the Group W bench. 

And he will do it again this year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Because it’s a tradition I love and he loves me, and that is what you do for the people you love – you endure their family traditions until somewhere along the way, their traditions became your traditions. Because that’s what makes a family.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

I love this rendition from artist Andrew Colunga. (Visit his Facebook page here)  This is also the original, full version of the song as well – Enjoy!

This post is dedicated to Mr. B, and to Thanksgiving’s past, present and future. Good Times.

Have a Warm, Happy Thanksgiving.